A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Shudi, Burkat

by A. J. Hipkins

SHUDI, famous harpsichord-maker, and founder of the house of Broadwood. Burkat Shudi, as he inscribed his name upon his instruments, was properly Burkhardt Tschudi, and was a cadet of a noble family belonging to Glarus in Switzerland.^[1] He was born March 13, 1702, and came to England in 1718, as ^[2]a simple journeyman joiner. When he turned to harpsichord-making is not known, but we are told by Burney, who knew Shudi and old Kirkman well, that they were both employed in London by Tabel,^[3] a Fleming, and Burney calls them Tabel's foremen, perhaps meaning his principal workmen. The anecdote given by Burney, in Rees's Cyclopaedia, of Kirkman's hasty wedding with his master's widow, and acquisition with her of Tabel's stock-in-trade, gives no information about Shudi, who is believed to have begun business in the house in Great Pulteney Street, still occupied by Broadwood's firm, in 1732. Burney gives a later and evidently a wrong date for Kirkman's arrival in this country (1740); still Shudi may have retired from Tabel and set up for himself before Kirkman acquired Tabel's business. [See Kirkman; also Broadwood.]

Kirkman had the King's Arms for the sign of his business in Broad Street, Carnaby Market; Shudi, the Plume of Feathers at the house now 33 Great Pulteney Street. He began in no back street, but in a good house in the new Golden Square neighbourhood, the most fashionable suburban quarter and adjacent to the Court of St. James's. We may trace the choice of signs of these old colleagues and now rival makers to the divided patronage of the King (George II.) and Prince of Wales, who were notoriously unfriendly.!No doubt Handel's friendship was of great value to Shudi: few harpsichords were then made, as owing to the relatively high price, and the great expense and trouble of keeping them in order, they were only for the rich. But the tuning and repairing alone would keep a business going; harpsichords lasted long, and were submitted to restoration and alteration that would surprise the amateur of the present day.^[4]

The Shudi harpsichord, formerly Queen Charlotte's, now in Windsor Castle, is dated 1740. It has a 'Lute' stop, a pleasing variation of timbre, and, like the pedal, of English invention in the previous century. [See Stops (Harpsichord).]

Frederick the Great took Prague by siege Sept. 16, 1744. James Shudi Broadwood (MS. Notes, 1838) accredits his grandfather Shudi with the gift of a harpsichord to that monarch, Shudi being a staunch Protestant, and regarding Frederick as the leader and champion of the Protestant cause. Mr. Broadwood moreover believed that a portrait of Shudi, which remained until a few years since in one of the rooms in Great Pulteney Street, represented him as engaged in tuning the identical harpsichord thus bestowed. Shudi's wife and two sons are also in the picture, a reproduction of which serves as the frontispiece to Rimbault's History of the Pianoforte. The elder boy, apparently nine years old, was born in 1736. This synchronises the picture with Frederick's victory and the peace concluded the following year. But the writer could not find this instrument either in Potsdam or Berlin in 1881. The tradition about it is however strengthened by the fact that in 1766 Frederick obtained from Shudi two special double harpsichords for his New Palace at Potsdam, where they still remain. Instead of the anglicised 'Shudi,' they are accurately inscribed 'Tschudi.' One has silver legs, etc.; the other rests upon a partially gilded stand. Following Burney, who however only describes the first one, they appear to have been placed in the apartments of the Princess Amelia, and the Prince of Prussia. These instruments, like all Shudi's which still exist, are of the soundest possible workmanship, discrediting Burney's assertion of the want of durability of his harpsichords ^[5], a reproach however which Burney goes on to say could not be alleged against Shudi's son-in-law and successor Broadwood. He however praises Shudi's tone as refined and delicate. The Potsdam harpsichords were made with Shudi's Venetian Swell, for which the pedals still exist, but it was probably not to the German taste of the time, and was therefore removed. Mr. Hopkins, in his comprehensive work upon the Organ, says the original organ swell was the 'nagshead,' a mere shutter, invented by Abraham Jordan in 1712. But to imitate its effect in the harpsichord we know that Plenius about 1750, and also in London, by a pedal movement, gradually raised and lowered a portion of the top or cover. This coming into general use, Shudi improved upon it by his important invention of the 'Venetian Swell' on the principle of a Venetian blind, which he patented Dec. 18, 1769. He probably delayed taking out the patent until it became necessary by his partnership with John Broadwood, who had also become his son-in-law,^[6] earlier in the same year. This invention was subsequently transferred to the organ. [See Swell.]

A harpsichord exists inscribed with the joint names of Shudi and Broadwood, dated 1770, although Shudi made harpsichords for himself after that date and independent of the partnership, as we know by existing instruments and by his will. About 1772 he retired to a house in Charlotte Street, leaving the business premises to his son-in-law, John Broadwood, and died Aug. 19, 1773. The next day a harpsichord was shipped to 'the Empress,' ordered by Joseph II. for Maria Theresa. The harpsichord that was Haydn's, recently acquired for the Museum at Vienna, at a cost of £110 sterling, was also a 'Shudi and Broadwood,' but this was the younger Burkat Shudi, who was in partnership with John Broadwood from 1773 to about 1782, and died in 1803.

A list of the existing harpsichords by Shudi and Shudi & Broadwood, as far as is known (1882), is here appended; all but one are Double harpsichords. The price of a Single harpsichord, about 1770, was 35 guineas; with Octava (i.e. Octave string), 40 guineas; with Octava and Swell, 50 guineas. A Double harpsichord with Swell, was 80 guineas.^[7]

No.	Date.	Signature.	Present Owner.	Remarks.
94	1740	Burkat Shudi.	H. M. the Queen, Windsor Castle.	Removed from Kew Palace in 1875.
260	1751	{{{1}}}„	F. Fairley, Esq., Newcastle-on-Tyne.	A single keyboard. 5 oct., F–F, with lowest F sharp omitted. 2 stops.
511	1766	Burkat Tschudi.	Emperor of Germany, Potsdam.	Made for Frederick the Great, and described by Burney.
512	1766	{{{1}}}„	{{{1}}}„{{{1}}}„	Made for Frederick the Great. (Both of 5. oct., C–F.)
625	1770	Burkat Shudi et Johannes Broadwood.	W. Dale, Esq.	Was in David Hartley's family, 6 stops, 2 pedals, as have nearly all these instruments.
639	1771	Burkat Shudi.	John Broadwood & Sons.	Played upon by Moscheles and by Mr. Ernst Pauer in their historical performances.
686	1773	Burkat Shudi et Johannes Broadwood.	Ditto. Lent to the Rev. Sir F. A. G. Ouseley, Bart., Tenbury.	Bought of Mr. T. W. Taphouse, 1861.
691	1773	{{{1}}}„	M. Victor Mahillon, Brussels.	Sent to 'the Empress' (Maria Theresa) Aug. 20, 1773. Obtained by M. Victor Mahillon from Vienna.
730	1775	{{{1}}}„	Messrs. Price & Sons, Yeovil.	Made for Lady Stoverdale, Redlinch, Bruton.
762	1775	{{{1}}}„	Musikverein, Vienna.	Was Joseph Haydn's, and subsequently Herbeck's.
899	1781	{{{1}}}„	T. W. Taphouse, Esq., Oxford.	5 oct., F–F., 7 stops, 2 pedals. Came from Mrs. Anson's, Sudbury Rectory, Derby.
902	1781	{{{1}}}„	C. Harford Lloyd, Esq., Gloucester.	5 oct., F–F. Restored by Mr. Taphouse.
919	1782	{{{1}}}„	Stephen Stratton, Esq., Birmingham.	Belonged to the Wrottesley family.

[ A. J. H. ]

1. Of the Schwanden branch. Heinrich, born 1074, died 1149, made Feodary of Glarus by the Lady Gutta, Abbess of Seckingen, was the first to adopt the surname Schudi (sic). The family tree goes back to Johann, Mayor of Glarus, born about 870.
2. See Schweizerische Lexicon, Zurich. 1795, art. Tschudi.
3. Messrs. Broadwood's books of 1777 mention a secondhand harpsichord by Tabel (written Table), a solitary instance of an instrument made by him.
4. While pianofortes are now kept in tune by yearly contracts, the researches of Mr. William Dale, in Messrs. Broadwood's old books, show that harpsichords in the last century were tuned by quarterly contracts!
5. Burney gives as his authority Snetzler the organ-builder, who attached organs to some of Shudi's harpsichords, and was moreover Shudi's intimate friend and executor. Shudi left him his ring, containing a portrait of Frederick the Great.
6. By his marriage with Barbara Shudi, baptized March 12, 1748; married to John Broadwood Jan. 2, 1769; died July 8, 1776. The first wife of John Broadwood, she was the mother of James Shudi Broadwood, who was born Dec. 20. 1772, died Aug. 8, 1851; and grandmother of Mr. Henry Fowler Broadwood and Mr. Walter Stewart Broadwood.
7. The altered value of money should be borne in mind in comparing these prices with those of modern pianofortes.